Matt Gurney: An obese
father’s loss of his children should alarm us all

An Ottawa man,
who cannot be identified, whose obesity played a factor in his
losing custody of his children sits on his La-Z-boy on Parliament
Hill to protest the rulin

Ottawa "Fat Father": An obese father's
loss of his children should alarm us all

A man in Ottawa found out this week that his two sons,
aged four and six, will be
given up for adoption. He has not seen his sons in a
year, and is estranged from his mentally troubled ex-wife,
who had custody of the children but lost them after a
nervous breakdown. They have spent years in foster care.

The father has certainly had some troubles of his own. He
has a history of angry outbursts, and took anger management
courses. He was a long-term marijuana addict (though now
clean) and even operated a grow op. And, as has been widely
reported, he is also severely obese. He currently weighs 380
lbs, down from 525 lbs.

His obesity and fitness were a key part of the ruling, a
copy of which was obtained by the National Post,
that he was unfit to be a father. Indeed, the court
recognized that the father had cleaned up his act and
achieved stability in his personal life, and that he loved
his children and showed no signs of ever having been abusive
to his children. It also noted, however, that, “(The
father’s) weight loss regime is itself a full-time job. So
is parenting two high-needs children. One will inevitably
have to give ground to the other.”

Related

It’s difficult to assess how much bearing the father’s
weight had on the ruling. If the father, for example, didn’t
have past behavioural issues and if the court didn’t find he
continued to have problems with anger and limited family
support, perhaps this would be different. But if taken at
face value, it seems that the court determined that, in
addition to the other admitted problems, the father simply
couldn’t care for his children, given his own health issues
and the need for him to focus on his own care.

There was another case in Ontario recently that, although
wildly different in its details, stuck close to a similar
theme. Maricyl Palisoc and Charles Wilton, of Mississauga,
had to fight to keep their son, born in April, because they
both suffer from cerebral palsy. Their baby is healthy, but
the local Children’s Aid Society feared that Palisoc and
Wilton, who both experience motor control issues and slurred
speech, were not able to care for the infant. The Society
wanted to remove the baby and place it into the foster-care
system. Eventually, the new parents were told they
would be allowed to keep their child, but only after
demonstrating that they had sufficient professional and
family support in their home to satisfy the Society.

Reached by telephone in Winnipeg, Laurie Beachell,
national co-ordinator of the
Council of Canadians with Disabilities, said that while
there is no centralized tracking of such incidents, they are
not rare. “It’s common that questions are asked about the
ability of those with disabilities to raise their children,”
Beachell said. “It’s a bigger issue around adoption, where a
citizen with a disability might not be chosen to receive a
child. But it’s an issue with children born to the disabled,
as well.

Though Mr. Beachell did not speak directly to the case of
the Ottawa father, or that of the Palisoc and Wilton baby,
he did speak generally to the collision between child
protection agencies and parents suffering from health
problems. “There is a natural desire among child protection
agencies to keep families together,” Mr. Beachell said. “But
there is also an automatic assumption among many that a
disabled person simply cannot raise a child. Depending on
what support is available locally, or what help other family
members provide, sometimes the protection agencies realize
that the parents are doing just fine. Other times, it’s a
real struggle to convince them that the child can be looked
after.”

Most Canadians will never find themselves in a situation
like Ms. Palisoc and Mr. Wilton, who chose to have a child
even though they were both disabled from the outset. But, as
Mr. Beachell correctly pointed out, none of us are immune
from finding ourselves in a situation comparable to the
Ottawa father, where a court finds that our own personal
medical needs mean we cannot continue to parent children we
already have had for years. A parent can be suddenly
crippled, perhaps permanently, by accident or disease. “All
of us are one slip away from having a court ruling on our
fitness to continue being parents, not just
become parents,” Mr. Beachell said.

The court’s ruling did indeed look into a variety of
factors relating to the father’s petition to have his sons
returned to him, and his obesity was just one element. His
past issues, concerns about his ability to afford a proper
home and a lack of local family support (his only nearby
relatives already have four children of their own) were also
factors. But it is certainly true that the court did pay
particular attention to the man’s health and prospects of
future health issues, while considering the father’s ability
to keep up with his sons, both of whom have special needs.

The boys may indeed do better with an adoptive family.
But it is difficult not to be unnerved by the ruling. While
this particular man has a troubled past, there’s every
reason to expect that any parent out there, if suddenly
faced with a health issue that slowed them down and required
a lot of time and energy to deal with, could find themselves
fighting to keep their children from being adopted while
they also work to regain their health and their
independence. Imagine how you’d feel if, heaven forbid,
having already lost your health, you then lost your kids and
were ordered not to contact them … so that you can focus on
your own recovery.